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Chin tickle teacher to appeal assault conviction

A TEACHER who was convicted of assault for tapping a pupil under the chin has started a legal bid to have his criminal record expunged.

David Bell, 51, who worked at Laurelhill Community College in Lisburn, is being backed financially by NASUWT, the UK’s largest teaching union, which sees this as a test case to establish the rights of teachers accused by pupils.

“If it is successful, it will have important implications for other cases,” said Chris Keates, the union’s general secretary. “Teachers are extremely vulnerable to accusations and this case is one that most reasonable people would say didn’t merit formal proceedings. Bell feels his life has been blighted by what was a technicality.”

Keates said that if new procedures introduced in England this year had been used, the case would have been dealt with by an internal investigation, and Bell might not even have been suspended. Bell retired